Collecting in the contemporary art world has becomea luxuryexclusive only to an elite of the richest and most powerful. When a work of art makes the headlines, it is often due to the exorbitant ticket price it reached in auction. In 2015, Christie's New York sold Warhol's Colored Mona Lisa for fifty-two million dollars. In the same year, Sotheby's auctioned Cy Twombly's Untitled (New York City)for seventy million dollars. The art of collecting is no longer an art, but a market that runs parallel to the globaleconomy. This market thriveson popularity and profitability. Buyers often see up and coming artists with the intent to resale for a profit. Some buyers are interested in the works of art because of artistic merit or because its content contributes their collection. Many others collect because of social competitiveness; acquiring art has become treasure hunting.

Andy Warhol, Colored Mona Lisa.

Cy Twombly, Untitled (New York City), 1968.

​Artists seek validation. Being part of a group show by an established curator, an invitation to a biennial or being represented by a gallery are some of the ways in which artists obtain this validation, however, since the 1980s the goal has shifted from validation to profit. Artists are now focusing on trends, they deliberately create pieces that are controversial, they create works that are larger than life, and seek popularity; because popularity equates to money. Art studios have become factories to accommodate the demands of thecollectors.Contemporary artistswork on a supply and demand system, in which the demand is very high,forcing the artists to produce work at a high rate. Artists then hire a teamto help them produce work at a larger scale and speed under their brand, which can cause the artist to lose touch with their practice. Although this practice of large scale art production has been in place since the time of the de' Medici, it has never been commercialized as it is today.

Jeff Koons is known bycollectors and curators as one of the best marketers of is own work. Koons is anexample of a production artist. Koons reproduces banal objects taken from popular culture in stainless steel, for which heholds a world record for the highest auction price for a work by a living artist. Koons himself has expressed that his work is not a critique on society, but an acceptance of society. A reproduction of Popeye made by Koons recently sold for twenty-eight million dollars in auction, it was then re-soldtwo weeks later for seventy millions. Although Koons is one of the best paid artists today, dealers often see much higher profits in resale than the original ticket price paid to to the artist. This is an ongoing issue because the market lacks regulation.​

Jeff Koons, Popeye Series, 2014.

Museums are not exempt to thesepractices. Most museums are ran as non-profit organizations, therefore they rely on contributions from their trustees and donors. The boards of trustees are formed by the same elite of rich and powerful people. Because of this relationship, the trustees have great influence in the selection of the art they display. Museums rely on loans and gifts from third parties, in fact, museums own a minimal amount of the work that they exhibit. Trustees may persuade museums to exhibit a specific artist from their private collection with the intent to increases the artist's popularity and the cash value of their works. While each museum has its own code of ethics regarding possible conflicts of interests between the trustees and the institution's mission, there are no state or federal regulations in place today.

As demand for art increases, only a small number of artists can benefit from it. It is not the most talented who succeed, but the ones who know how to play the game. Art economists advice that this way of operating is not sustainable, and they foresee a drastic change in the market in the next few decades.

I've read a lot about this issue about contemporary art and the market of collectors (or rather, investors?). I would have liked to hear more from your point of view as an artist about these "production artists" who as you said, are separating themselves from their work. Especially when sometimes the work is a conceptual piece that really requires a group effort.

Speaking of Koons, you may appreciate this article about how his recent sculpture to memorialize the Paris attack is undergoing quite a bit of criticism: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/arts/design/jeff-koons-paris.html

Paige Pellouchoud

2/15/2018 09:19:03 am

I think it's important to reflect on how artists like Koons are utilizing the market by satisfying demand. The disconnect of an artist's work into something more commercial was foreshadowed by Warhol. Warhol comes to mind when I think of Koons in the way he chose to represent an icon in his work based on popular culture. I like your point in your conclusion, with how in all this, museums develop their own agendas with how they want to display work.

Eva Chen

2/15/2018 08:27:58 pm

Hi Claudia, I know this issue has happened for long time. Collecting contemporary art is kind of investment for people. Even though, this investment may benefit both buyer and artist, but this system is not really benefit for artists. Thus, artist may not work for meaningful art at all. Then, people work art for money.

Mario Munguia

2/18/2018 11:53:07 pm

Yes, I agree with everything you wrote, and unfortunately that's the way it works today. I'll have to see the film you referenced in your bibliography, the last good one I saw on this subject was The Great Contemporary Art Bubble based on the recession in 2008 while the art market thrived, and also the book 7 days in the Art World by Sarah Thorton. Both sources reveal how auction houses, galleries, collectors, and artists work together in this lucrative business, and also how collectors buy works worth millions and send them straight to storage without having even looked at them. Though it also points out how there is no way to project the future value of acquired works and how some works retain value based solely on the artists name. The fact that it is the largest unregulated market in the world makes a monopoly possible, like that family who owns about 80 percent or so of all the Warhols in the world. If they own them all then they can set the price.